Jutland Multiplayer Campaign

[Von der Tann]

Perhaps we should give it until autumn starts, when lots of people are driven indoors and suddenly find the time for gaming again. I, for my part, am already thinking about a strategy and tactics fit for (a) live opponent(s)!

 

[saddletank]

I spoke with Jess a day or two ago and he is okay to team up with Rocky and play as a pair against you and Stefan.

We'll probably do this all by emails off the site as there is nowhere on here for private discussions. I'll post up the main AARs here though for everyone to read.

I think we should make a start and just play it by ear - consider it a test bed to iron out snags and build up the basic game rules we need - and as a sideline it should generate some fun MP battles.

Of course with Norm and Jim being so quiet I hope that soon we'll have something else to do a MP campaign with and then we should get much more interest.

 

[Von der Tann]

Perhaps I can arrange something on a German board where I am a moderator. The board will be all in German, which tends to give many people a severe headache, but since the general layout is pretty much identical, it should not be too hard.

 

[saddletank]

As I do not speak German that might be tricky. I think e-mails is easy enough and they also pop up in your face every day so are more likely to be responded to than a forum post which can be missed if you don't visit that forum.

I am going to e-mail the four of you and set things in motion.

EDIT: Now using the first post in this thread to hold campaign rules.

 

[Von der Tann]

Right now, I'm still on holiday, and my on-line time is limited. However, I will copy out the relevant data and mails and duly consider them. I will be home again at the end of the coming week, and we should be able to get started shortly afterwards.

 

[Von der Tann]

Just finished reading the point list of possible actions. I like it, but one thing is missing: zeppelin attack. against British cities. This will be a difficult one, as there is no way of killing a zeppelin in-game, but the umpire can take care of that by a further throw of the dice. I will look into the literature and calculate the risk of a zeppelin being lost in a bombing run, and only the more recent types can take part in an attack anyway, as the older ones lack both range and carrying capacity. The engine does not involve all zeppelins in the theatre, of course, both the navy and the army had about twice as much, many of which were busy elsewhere, like the eastern front or the Baltic.

 

[saddletank]

Sounds good. I'm not sure still if the Zeppelins shown in the game accounts for every single one the Germans had. Were there other Zeppelin bases? Were bombing raids on England conducted from those? If either of those questions has a 'yes' answer then I think we should assume that the German team can ignore Zeppelin bombing raids since they are being conducted by other ships than those shown in the game.

To draw a parallel in the RN, there are a lot of other RN vessels around elsewhere doing vital jobs but the game does not show them since their remit places them beyond this campaign.

 

[Von der Tann]

The Germans had a few other zeppelin bases, but some of them were far in the east, like Seerappen in East Prussia. There were a few other ones in the west, I think one of them was in Düsseldorf, but Ahlhorn and Tondern were among the largest. I will look for the appropriate data, my idea with the zeppelin raids was to have a counterpart to the AV raids of the British team.

Two further things occurred to me. Others have mentioned that Zeebrügge is somewhat useless as a base, since it is only a port, and the RN can draw any surface ship stationed there out towards an overwhelming force. Strangely, the same goes for Heligoland, which was designated as a sea fortress... and I read that Dover suffers from similar issues. Maybe we should ask the SES team for a micro-patch to set things right before we start? We could make the MP campaign a promo action in return.

 

[saddletank]

I have a ticket already submitted covering the Dover base bug. I also suggested in the same ticket that Zeebrugge, Dunkerque and Harwich should be bases and not ports though I did not mention Helgoland as I wasn't aware of it at the time though I agree it too should be a base. Another advantage of an MP game is that we can agree that one side flees into a port and is out of harm's way and I will disallow battles where the AI would place a force that was safely in a base or port, out of it. This helps vulnerable task forces like the Flanders TBs and the Dover Monitors.

As far as a piece of AI or game logic goes the Assigned Port of each ship should count as a Base for that ship. That would make things much more logical I think, so that an insignificant RN TB can scoot into Whitby for protection if Whitby happens to be its base.

Something to bear in mind before we move on is that the game does not treat 'resting' forces as completely inert and anchored safely under the guns of a harbour wall. Resting forces lay defensive mines and the 16 Flanders TBs main value I think is to keep them resting and let them lay 64 mines per day off the port, so the boats are active in the seas around the port in real terms even if the campaign commanders say they are not.

I take your point on the air raids equivalent though I'm not sure I agree the game needs a balancing counterpoint on the basis that the RN conducted seaplane raids. The two sides had different strategies and opportunities and I'm leaning towards not having Zeppelin raids in the game as this is a more strategic operation intended to affect Britain at a political level and is not a component of the naval war as such even though it might use naval units. I think it would be a fair bit of work to manage it for little useful return and I could abstract it by simply awarding the KM (say) 5 VPs a week for every Zeppelin they do not use (place it 'resting' in base).

 

[Von der Tann]

You're probably right about the zeppelins, I hope that SES will give us an opportunity to use them for bombardment some day. I already thought of an "umpire conversion" of certain ports into bases, but I am not certain how well this will go. Could you be so kind to add the Heligoland issue to the Dover Bug ticket, please? No need to open a new one then.

 

[saddletank]

Will do.

 

[saddletank]

We have two players on each side - and I know Vasco and Sam have expressed an interest giving us two teams of three, though in fact it might work better with 4 vs 2 as the RN have so many patrol craft, subs, AMCs and French forces to look after it might be worth weighting the players more on their side.

But if Vasco and Sam would say which side they'd prefer to play we will get this started. I can't promise how far we will get with it but I think it will be an interesting exercise to play the strategic game against real players instead of the AI.

 

[saddletank]

Not sure why the thread was showing 'closed'. I must have pressed the wrong button. Opened it again.

 

[Raptor1]

*raises hand*

I'd like to join, I think. Can you outline the basics of how it will (persumably) work? This thread is a bit confusing, considering I've not been around for a while.

 

[saddletank]

Hi Raptor! I remember you from a long time back.

I removed the first post because I wanted to fill that with the rules as I drafted them, but here is essentially how it will work. This is unfortunately the only way to run an MP campaign using the Jutland software:

The idea is simple. I will run the campaign on my PC with both sides as human players. I will issue the orders in-game to all units and let the small encounters between merchants and those trying to capture them play out on my PC. For bigger battles we can create scenarios and play them MP online or some of the tiny encounters between a few DDs could also be played by me under standing tactical orders from both sides. After the MP battles are finished, players would send me a detailed report of what their damage and losses are and I will remove the sunk ships from the campaign order of battle (by just sailing them into a port so they are no longer used).

Lightly, moderately and heavily damaged ships will be out of service for 48 hours / 1 week / 1 month respectively.

If a big battle occurs on the campaign map I will pause the game, draw up the scenario and in the actual game itself steer the two forces away so there are no campaign losses.

The only actual ships sunk and captured on my PC campaign will be merchants and losses to mines and torpedoes which take place without a battle being set up by the game software.

I will only be moving ships and forces around the map on the instructions of the commanders and teams of players. They will decide grand strategy and every operation. I will move units exactly in accordance with their orders and will pause the campaign in order to issue these so neither side is benefited

The campaign will require two teams of players and I suggest:

Entente
----------
Admiralty/Adm Jellicoe - general naval strategy / GF orders
RAdm de Char/Adm Beatty - 10th CS / BCF orders
Commodore Tyrwhitt - Harwich Force orders
French Admiral - French forces (need a name for the French Channel commander, or Naval Minister)
Coastal Patrols - old DDs and TBs (need a name for this command)
Submarine command - submarine flotillas (need a name for this command)

Germany
-----------
Naval War Staff/Adm Scheer - general naval strategy / HSF orders
VAdm Hipper - SG orders
Adm commanding Zeebrugge - Flanders flotilla, inc. submarines
Adm commanding Bight defences & Recon - all defence forces in Bight, mine layers and local flotillas, and Zeppelins (need a name for this command)
U-Boat command - all submarines other than those based in Flanders (need a name for this command)

I lumped 10th CS in with the Beatty role as I don't see there being that much scope for BCF independent planning and running 10th CS gives the Beatty player something extra to do. Where I have noted that we 'need a name for this command' that means the actual military department itself and a historical named commander if we can find one.

We can set up a section of this forum I hope for general game discussion and the announcement of notices and losses, private communication between teams can be by PMs or e-mails, or we could even set up a couple of small discussion forums.

The game can include an element of role-playing if that's what floats your boat and I think it would be fun to draft PMs, forum posts and e-mails 'in character'.

-------------------------------------------------------------

So, three questions:

1) Am I crazy or might this just work and be a lot of fun?
2) Has anyone got input/comments/better ideas or how to plan and run this?
3) Who would like to play and in what role? You do not need to be available to play online MP games as I think we have a few online players who can fight the battles and I would not wish to hold up online games waiting for 'Beatty' to return from a 3-week vacation or whatever, in fact the 'offline' strategy team would be best if they didn't play online as it would give more forum members jobs to do. I envisage the online MP battles being mostly fought by the usual suspects who regularly do the MP games. We don't need 6 or 8 players, 1 a side will be enough probably for the small and medium battles, we'll only need more players for the big encounters.

 

[Tanyrhiew]

Role wise, it might be worth splitting the Admiralty/Jellicoe commands as historically Harwich Force was under Admiralty orders and not Jellicoes' and were held back at Jutland (Tyrwhitt actually sailed but was recalled, Jellicoe loosing the use of the Harwich DF as he had feared).

 

[saddletank]

Yes, fair point. We are quite short of players though... so it maybe a luxury to hamstring the British command that we end up not being able to represent.

I think, politically, a separate French forces player is more desirable than a separate Harwich Force player.

We now have 8 players interested, so I will PM everyone again, or send out e-mails since several still have not expressed a preference as to which side they would like to command.

I think we only really *need* three Germans: Scheer, Hipper and a third player to be responsible for Zeppelins, submarines and defence flotillas as well as Flanders forces.

If the other five form the Entente team we can have Jellicoe, Beatty, Tyrwhitt, Rouyer (French Admiral) and "The Admiralty" who will have control of all submarines and local defence forces. If the RN choose to send 3rd BS and some CAs down south to form a Channel Fleet the Admiralty player could have those under his authority as well. Having played the campaign for a while now from both sides, I have found that a Hipper role is quite useful as being separate from Scheer since German light forces tend to do a lot. I am not sure a Beatty role on its own would be enough to keep someone occupied so if the Beatty role also includes command of 10th CS that should let that player do more.

 

[Vasco]

Saddletank,

Why not start a campaign as things stand at the moment - we can work out the bugs as we go along.

Vasco

 

[saddletank]

Yes, that is my plan. I do however need players to state which side they want to play on! We currently have 2 Germans - Von der Tann and Admiral Hipper and 2 British - Anav and Daedalus. Sam, you, Tanyrhiew and Raptor have expressed interest in playing but not which side you want to play on so until I know that there is not much I can do since I don't know who to talk to regarding tasks.

The first person to say they wish to play German gets the 3rd slot there, but it will almost certainly be the local defence forces role. The remainder will play on the Entente side.

 

[Tanyrhiew]

PM sent